On The Road

Yesterday marked eighteen weeks of running down.  At least one mile per day for more than 125 days.  That is utterly insane to me for lots of reasons.  But from the conversations I have had during that time, it seems that it is utterly insane to lots of other people for one specific reason:

Only two of the miles logged have been on a treadmill.

Thats right.  From gorgeous late-fall days to sloppy Connecticut snow to Arizona mountains, my running streak has been nearly entirely completed in our great outdoors. 

I used to be a gym rat.  630pm rolled around and you could bet you'd find me on an elliptical with my nose in a book, or reading the captions on a Jersey Shore repeat, grumbling about the meatheads dropping weights in the corner.

But when I took but Muay Thai, I found that leaving the machines behind opened lots of other doors.  So I gave up the typical gym membership in favor of runs through the Fan, and yoga classes, and kickboxing. 

And while the lack of a treadmill posed some interesting challenges for this running streak - like that crazy one mile run through my house - I haven't missed the human-hamster-wheel at all.

This running streak has definitely been a new creature for me - finding a way to run each and everyday regardless of whether the trees were painted the gleaming golden yellow of fall:

Or my hometown was blanketed in new-fallen snow:

Or Bellevue was beginning to bloom:

And I'm a little sad to see it reaching its close.

Or is it?  I'll be just 32 days short of half a year . . . . stay tuned!